I have two ways of dealing with interruptions from my husband. The first is to plainly state "You've interrupted me. I'm not done what I'm saying." Which is blunt, but befitting the rudeness of being spoken over. The second is to gently stroke his cheek and say "Gosh. You're SO pretty". It's our code for shut up now

In the Myers Briggs personality types, there is an attribute that is either "Sensing" or "Intuition".If you are a sensor, you are into details. If you an intuitive, you are into the big picture. Sounds like he may be an extreme sensor and you are more of an intuitive.

I have two ways of dealing with interruptions from my husband. The first is to plainly state "You've interrupted me. I'm not done what I'm saying." Which is blunt, but befitting the rudeness of being spoken over. The second is to gently stroke his cheek and say "Gosh. You're SO pretty". It's our code for shut up now

I don't know why this tickles me as much as it does. Do you only do this when you're alone, or do you suddenly break out with "Gosh. You're SO pretty" in front of other people in the conversation. I'm just picturing a group conversation taking a sudden turn into the surreal when people see this for the first time, especially if you're discussing some serious and completely unromantic topic at the time.

To me, the OP sounds like a problem of different conversational styles clashing. I have plenty of friends with whom conversations go veering off on long tangents due to a comment on some detail. But it works because both people communicate in the same style. If one of us wants to complete the original train of thought, we either hold the thought and continue after the tangent conversation or pause the tangent with something like "Before I forget, the original point was..." I think establishing some signal or outright telling him when you're trying to make a point and he's interrupting would be good. However, if going off on tangents is his normal conversational style, then I would urge you to sometimes go with it when you're having a casual conversation and not trying to make an important point. It's important for him to respect your conversational style, but that goes both ways.

One thing I'd like to point out about your "blue skies" example (I know you just made it up, but you might want to think if actual instances are like this):Your statement "Good thing it was blue skies and not raining" sounds like a conclusion to me. It sounds like you've finished your story of your difficult commute and are wrapping it up. So your BF's comment doesn't strike me an interruption. To me, it sounds like a way to continue the conversation based on a cool tidbit that your story brought to mind. "Speaking of [the phrase] 'blue skies,' did you know that they actually only look blue because..." So you might want to think about how you would have expected the conversation to go. Did you actually have more to tell him about your commute, which he cut off? Did you want him to comment or commiserate before moving on with the conversation? Would a tangent on "why the sky looks blue" be OK if he hadn't phrased it as a correction ("the sky isn't actually blue...")? If you only tell your BF what you don't want him to do, he may still not know what you do want.

Even if she had been finished, it still would have sounded obnoxious and pedantic to me. The blueness of the sky wasn't the point of the story at all, so making that the focus of the first comment in response, while no longer an interruption, still signals, "What you were telling me isn't interesting and didn't even register with me; when you said "blue sky," you reminded me of something I know that you don't, so I'm going to change the subject to that."

Slightly better would be something like, "You're right, that was lucky. I"m glad it worked out okay. Incidentally, you mentioned 'blue skies' -- every time I hear that, it reminds me of something interesting I once learned ...." It doesn't interrupt, it doesn't display that you weren't paying attention to the story, and it doesn't correct the other person on what is an irrelevant detail anyway.

Do that enough, and people start calling you "Cliff Clavin," after the trivia-spouting mailman on the 80s sitcom Cheers. Don't ask me how I know.

But that's not so bad, because it doesn't take the form of correcting the other person on an inconsequential matter, and in so doing, derailing their whole story.

I know your pain. My husband, the Dude goes down the rabbit hole with twin needs of being obsessed with minutiae and being right. I now cut him off after the first correction, "That isn't a relevant fact to the story. Please let me finish." And then I follow up further interuptions with my Aunt Mamie face. It's curtailed somewhat.

To commiserate: I once sent a friend a short play called, "Why I Want to Live on the Moon."

It was a one act jobbie, vaguely going something like this:

Me: Do you remember the time I drove the van when the Artful Dodger was visiting last year?Dude: It was the car.Me: I remember it being the van. Anyway. So, when I...Dude: No, it was definitely the car.Me: Okay. It was the car. I was going...Dude: Seriously, it was the car.Me: Alright. The car. What I was trying to say...Artful Dodger: I remember it being the car. Definitely in the car.Me: Yes. The car. When I...Dude: When you drove the car? Because it was the car, not the van.Me: You know, at this point, I don't care if it was a purple dinosaur named Lucky. At no point in time was the car portion of this story relevant...Dude: Honey, I'm just trying to point out that it was the car that time.

And then I built a rocketship and moved to the moon. With my purple dinosaur, named Lucky.

Listening to my FIL and my late MIL tell stories was excruciating because of this. He would say this event happened on a Wednesday, she'd interrupt to say that, no, it happened on a Tuesday. And it didn't happen at 5 o'clock, it happened at 3 o'clock. Short stories went on forever.

Him being a sports nerd fits the situation pretty well. Sports nerds usually have a head full of statistics, and they are *proud* of them. (A lot of them could tell you, without thinking, who was the left fielder for the Phillies' 1980 World Series run.)

Luzinski?

This is so Sheldonesque not only because of the corrections but because the OP's BF picked something that is so commonly accepted. Ok, 'Blue Skies' may not be scientific or correct but it is a common expression. Everyone knows what you mean. Pedantic much?

Him being a sports nerd fits the situation pretty well. Sports nerds usually have a head full of statistics, and they are *proud* of them. (A lot of them could tell you, without thinking, who was the left fielder for the Phillies' 1980 World Series run.)

He is downright scary sometimes - I answered his phone call while I was watching a Wrestlemania dvd he loaned me: he could tell from a few seconds of the commentary in the background which match I was watching.

He can rattle off who fought who, where, when and why/for what title at the drop of a hat. It's the "when" that kills me - I know timeline matters to a degree, but I have no head for dates (my least favorite aspect of history classes). On the other hand, I love the who and why - the story part of things. Once he realized he could actually talk to me about wrestling (and not have my eyes start to glaze over) if he cut back on the stats and focused on the drama he got very excited. Sometimes having interests in common isn't enough - you have to be able to talk about them in the right way!

I can relate so well! I remember being a kid and going to the beach with my aunt and uncle. I'd be sitting in the back between my two cousins who would be volleying sports stats back and forth. Who played for the Mets in this year, who got traded that year, the batting averages for any player for any year. Now I enjoy sports and at the time really enjoyed baseball but had no head for dates at all.

I loved history, but did so poorly on tests because I had a hard time remembering when battles were fought and the exact start and end dates of wars were. General time frame, yes, but not exact dates.

Logged

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

I know your pain. My husband, the Dude goes down the rabbit hole with twin needs of being obsessed with minutiae and being right. I now cut him off after the first correction, "That isn't a relevant fact to the story. Please let me finish." And then I follow up further interuptions with my Aunt Mamie face. It's curtailed somewhat.

To commiserate: I once sent a friend a short play called, "Why I Want to Live on the Moon."

It was a one act jobbie, vaguely going something like this:

Me: Do you remember the time I drove the van when the Artful Dodger was visiting last year?Dude: It was the car.Me: I remember it being the van. Anyway. So, when I...Dude: No, it was definitely the car.Me: Okay. It was the car. I was going...Dude: Seriously, it was the car.Me: Alright. The car. What I was trying to say...Artful Dodger: I remember it being the car. Definitely in the car.Me: Yes. The car. When I...Dude: When you drove the car? Because it was the car, not the van.Me: You know, at this point, I don't care if it was a purple dinosaur named Lucky. At no point in time was the car portion of this story relevant...Dude: Honey, I'm just trying to point out that it was the car that time.

And then I built a rocketship and moved to the moon. With my purple dinosaur, named Lucky.

In the van.

That was just priceless!

DH and I both have this tendency, but we try to squash it. We have an acquaintance, Tony, however, who is absolutely fixated on details, especially details about 1970s and 1980s TV shows and sci-fi movies.

Tony and his girlfriend very kindly gave me a lift to an event we were all going to a couple of months ago. As we were driving along, I happened to mention a bit of trivia concerning the TV series 'The Prisoner', specifically concerning the introduction to each episode. (For those of you who don't know it, each episode began with a spoken exchange between some of the characters.) The trivia I mentioned was that a band I am fond of had sampled this spoken introduction at the beginning of one of their songs, and had had to ask one of the actors personally for permission to use it.

'Ah,' says Tony, 'but which version of the introduction was it? Was it the original which featured Actor X?'Tony's girlfriend chimed in 'It could have been the version used in episodes 28 to 37 where Actor X wasn't available and they used Actor Y instead.''Yes,' says Tony, 'or it could have been the version only used in the very last few episodes where they unexpectedly replaced Actor X with Actor Z instead.'This went on for another five minutes.

All this over three lines of dialogue. And the lines weren't even spoken by the actor I had mentioned...

Logged

When you look into the photocopier, the photocopier also looks into you

DH and I both have this tendency, but we try to squash it. We have an acquaintance, Tony, however, who is absolutely fixated on details, especially details about 1970s and 1980s TV shows and sci-fi movies.

Tony and his girlfriend very kindly gave me a lift to an event we were all going to a couple of months ago. As we were driving along, I happened to mention a bit of trivia concerning the TV series 'The Prisoner', specifically concerning the introduction to each episode. (For those of you who don't know it, each episode began with a spoken exchange between some of the characters.) The trivia I mentioned was that a band I am fond of had sampled this spoken introduction at the beginning of one of their songs, and had had to ask one of the actors personally for permission to use it.

'Ah,' says Tony, 'but which version of the introduction was it? Was it the original which featured Actor X?'Tony's girlfriend chimed in 'It could have been the version used in episodes 28 to 37 where Actor X wasn't available and they used Actor Y instead.''Yes,' says Tony, 'or it could have been the version only used in the very last few episodes where they unexpectedly replaced Actor X with Actor Z instead.'This went on for another five minutes.

All this over three lines of dialogue. And the lines weren't even spoken by the actor I had mentioned...

It strikes me that Tony and his girlfriend are both extremely lucky to have found an SO on their -- shall we say, highly-specialised -- wavelength; whose sustained company they can, therefore, stand !

If someone corrects me when I'm telling a story in a social situation, my response depends on whether the corrected information is relevant to the story.

If it's relevent, I'll acknowledge the correction (if I was incorrect to begin with) or (if the "correction" is not actually correct) I'll usually respond with "Actually it was [correct info]" and if they persist, respond with something along the lines of "Who's telling the story?" (and wait for either an answer of an uncomfortable silence to build around the "corrector" before continuing with the story).

If it's a detail that isn't really relevent, then I ignore the correction (and the fact that someone interrupted me) and continue the story. If the "corrector" persists, I usually say "Fine, you tell the story" and go find something else to do or someone else to talk with.

Honore (Maurice Chevalier) & Mamita (Hermione Gingold)H: We met at nineM: We met at eightH: I was on timeM: No, you were lateH: Ah, yes, I remember it wellWe dined with friendsM: We dined aloneH: A tenor sangM: A baritoneH: Ah, yes, I remember it wellThat dazzling April moon!M: There was none that nightAnd the month was JuneH: That's right. That's right.

Logged

I dream of a world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.